It’s easy to get complacent about the management and direction of the Big Australian while the share price is riding high and we’re all marinating in our $2 dividend -but hey - we saw last year how quickly the iron ore price can turn. I’m still not impressed with this BHP board.....and this below is a clue as to why.
“We will be hitting $35 very quickly at these levels. Look at the lng price in Asia and Europe.What a time to step into bhp’s oil and gas assets!”
This was posted the other day on the WPL thread by a WPL shareholder. They’re euphoric over there. I know we BHP shareholders stand to receive WPL shares and can choose to keep them but current circumstances does make one ponder the merits of the panicked decision to offload BHPP. The ESG warriors bullied them into this weak and questionable decision and I’m sure behind closed doors in recent times there’s a bit of whispered WTF at board level now that oil and gas stocks are the hottest ticket in town.
The world is looking at oil and gas and ‘energy security’ in a whole new light right now and it seems there is suddenly more tolerance for the transition out of oil and gas to happen at a more sensible pace. This was common sense anyway - it’s just taken a war to remind the world we’re locked into oil and gas for another decade or two whether we like it or not.
With their coffers positively bulging, big oilers Chevron and Shell have this past week announced significant investments in renewables. This was the alternative course that could have been taken with BHPP. While the business was gushing with cash it could have cherry picked the best of the renewables companies and reinvented itself over time as a broader diversified energy arm as it transitioned over time out of oil and gas.
BHPP could have become BHPE and stayed within the group as a profitable energy arm that continued to offer the diversity that BHPP has always offered.
That opportunity is now with Woodside. I look forward to my WPL allocation and am confident that the old BHPP assets will soon be in the hands of a board that can extract full value from them.....and not be so susceptible to rolling over when it comes to externals making irrational ESG demands.
BHP Price at posting:
$49.94 Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
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